


Charmingly Petite

by ItsaVikingThing



Category: RWBY
Genre: Action, F/F, Humour, Or maybe Weiss is in denial, Set somewhere between Volumes 2 and 3, They're just friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 06:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14889639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ItsaVikingThing/pseuds/ItsaVikingThing
Summary: Team RWBY has been tasked with finding and shutting down a band of thieves who have been luring Grimm to cover their raids.Unfortunately for Weiss Schnee, she's been captured by the thieves her team has been sent to hunt.Unfortunately for the thieves, they have no idea what they've got themselves into...





	Charmingly Petite

"This is disgusting," Weiss says, wrinkling her nose at the filth-encrusted chair in front of her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," the large thug--whose name Weiss refuses to expend energy on learning--says, before shoving her in the back. "Did I give you the impression you had a choice in any of this, little girl?"

In spite of the shackles on her wrists, Weiss manages to twist round when he shoves her, and check some of her momentum. She ends up sitting on the chair in a less dignified manner than she'd like, but at least she doesn't fall.

She looks around the abandoned warehouse, taking in the broken crates that used to hold Dust, the old workbenches that have been used as dining tables, the heaps of unwashed dishes, empty cans, broken furniture, the dirt, the squalor, the _smell_.

She takes note of the half-dozen men in their nondescript clothing, scavenged pieces of armour and poorly maintained weapons. She notes their positions, and her own, under an old skylight so smeared with dirt as to be almost opaque. There's a gantry above and slightly behind her, and a pulley system not too far to her left. The machinery looks rusted through, but sturdy chains dangle within reach of someone leaping from the warehouse floor.

Assuming said someone wasn't wearing shiny new shackles on her wrists.

Weiss scowls. "Ugh, these shackles are getting oil on the sleeves of my jacket! And this _whole place_ is disgusting. Don't you have any sense of pride? Or the basic computational skills and literacy required to make a cleaning rota?"

A couple of the thugs move closer to her, faces tight with anger.

Rude Thug raises his hand, stopping them in their tracks. He sneers at her. "Aww, poor little rich girl! What a shock it must be, to be down here in the dirt with common folk like us. Wearing the very shackles you and your friends intended to slap on our wrists, eh? That bit must sting."

"Oh, please! I'm immune to your utterly trite condescension, in no sense of the word poor, charmingly _petite_ , extremely rich, and a huntress...in training. And _you_ are violent criminals who lured a pack of Grimm into a public street, just so you could raid a Dust transport during all the chaos. You put the lives of actual common folk at risk. You'll be wearing shackles soon enough, just like you deserve." Weiss sniffs. "Without danger to your sleeves, because they are already...disgusting."

Rude thug laughs. The other thugs in the warehouse begin to drift closer, forming a loose semicircle around her chair with Rude Thug in the middle, right in front of her, just outside of kicking range.

"Oh, what a delight you are, Miss Schnee. I wonder if your family will even want you back?"

"You're going to ransom me? Don't expect me to write the note."

Rude Thug narrows his eyes. "I can read and write. And I _am_ going to ransom you to your family. Or kill you, like the rest of your team."

Weiss rolls her eyes. "You've _already_ killed me. I'm going to die of an infection from this chair. A Schnee, killed by a chair infection? I'll never live it down."

"Enough!" Rude Thug gestures to another equally squalid thug, who is holding a soiled rag. "Gag her."

"You are _not_ going to gag me!" Weiss snaps. "First, hello, _germs_! Second, if you do, you'll not hear the warning."

"Warning? About your family? I've dealt with people like them before."

"Not my family! Although...they _should_ come with warning labels. My father forced me to sit through endless lessons on deportment, ettiquette, elocution...do you know how many hours I spent as a child having to hold stones under my tongue while saying ridiculous phrases, all to improve my diction?"

"On further consideration," Rude Thug says, drawing a curved dagger from his belt. "It might be better all round to cut out your tongue."

"My team! The warning is about my team!" Weiss looks down at her lap, and grimaces. She's getting oil on her skirt, too. The entire thug chorus starts laughing at her. Weiss narrows her eyes, but doesn't look up. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing!" Rude Thug ambles closer to her, his dagger held casually at his side. "It's just...after we lifted you and those shackles you were oiling, we made sure we weren't being followed back here. No one knows where you are, Miss Schnee." He leans down, right in front of her. "But _I_ know where your team is! See, I left watchers at that little clubhouse you girls were playing in. Which is how I know that when your team got back, they decided to split up to look for you. Which means they're all alone, and I have a dozen men out there taking them out, one by one, as we speak." 

He raises his dagger, and runs the point of it down the contour of Weiss' cheek. He slips his blade under her jaw and forces her head up. He grins when they make eye contact, and cups his free hand behind his ear. "So, ah...what was that warning again, you stupid, arrogant whelp?"

Weiss wrinkles her nose at his breath. "The warning is readily apparent in the name, you know."

"Schnee? You think daddy's going to save you? His money might, but-"

"No, not that name. _Huntress_ , you dolt. We're not warriors, or soldiers, or police officers. We are _hunters_."

Rude Thug frowns. Behind him, his men's smiles fade, uncertainty entering their stances.

Weiss smirks. "So tell me something, Rude Thug..."

"Hey! My name is--"

"Staggeringly unimportant. Let me see if I understand this...you found me alone in our...ahem, _base of operations_ , oiling these chains, my rapier hanging on the wall out of reach, and you took me with barely a scuffle, locked me in my own chains, dragged me to what is obviously your secret lair, and sent most of your men away based on what you _think_ my team is doing because they loudly discussed it in front of your watchers. Leaving only you and the four standing behind you to guard this place. And you feel safe because...no one was shadowing you?"

He blinks. "Uh...yes? And maybe also because I have a knife at your throat?"

"They didn't need to follow us, because I left a trail of oil for them to track." Weiss leans closer to him, in spite of the edge of his dagger against her throat, and the considerably greater danger his breath represents. "We couldn't guarantee we'd capture all of you if we tried to take you all on at once, so we decided to isolate the leadership and take _you_ down, first. Then we're going to set up an ambush for the rest of your crew in your own den. You didn't catch me offguard, and you did _not_ take me prisoner." Weiss smirks. "You merely took the bait."

He chuckles nervously. "Oh, that's quite the story you've spun! You almost had me going, I'll admit!"

Weiss intensifies her smirk. With a clink, she raises her hands out of her lap."This 'story' ends with you in these chains, Rude Thug."

"Stop calling me..." He stares into her eyes, trying to read her, so she gets a good view when the realisation comes to him. "Wait...there are five men behind me!"

He starts to look around, and the edge of his dagger moves away from her throat.

Weiss grabs the chains between her wrists and whips them across Rude Thug's hand, knocking his weapon away. She simultaneously drives the point of one stiletto heel into his foot, the other into his shin. He squeals in pain, and Weiss kicks hard with both feet, knocking Rude Thug's legs out from under him and shooting her chair back across the smooth stone floor, out of reach of the other men.

Rude Thug heaves himself upright, scrabbling for his blade and yelling at his men, "Get her!

Weiss hops off her seat and backs up a step, putting herself under the gantry. She rolls her tongue, dislodging the key to her chains from the floor of her mouth. She spits it into her hand and frees her wrists, wincing in distate. "Ugh, could you have made this plan _more_ undignified, Ruby?"

The thugs rush at her. Weiss grips the chains of her shackles in one hand, grabs the chair with the other, raises it overhead, and...ducks.

At that exact moment, as the thugs pass under the skylight, it shatters inwards. Moonlight spills into the warehouse, illuminating the rain of countless shards of glass and exactly one grinning Yang Xiao Long that fall onto the men below. Weiss' position under the gantry and her chair shield her from the glass. The thugs are less lucky. The noise makes them look up. The falling glass makes them duck and cover their eyes, and that makes them perfect targets for Yang.

Yang's feet collide with one thugs's chest, knocking him down and putting him out. She pushes off him while he's falling, turns a somersault, and lands in a crouch in the middle of the thugs, slamming her gauntleted fists into the ground. The stone floor shakes and cracks, throwing most of the thugs off their feet.

One thug stays upright, charging through the falling glass, right at Weiss, a shock rod in his hands. She stands up, takes a step back, and raises the chair. He roars in fury when he comes into striking range, but when he draws his arm back to deliver the blow, a black cord whips out of the shadows and wraps around his wrist. He gasps in surprise, then yelps when Weiss snaps her arm, uncoiling the chain in her hand and wrapping it around his ankle. She yanks one way, Blake Belladonna the other, and the thug goes down. 

Weiss lets go of the chain, and the thug screams as he gets dragged across the floor into the shadows, where his screaming abruptly stops. 

While Yang is cheerfully pummeling two men into submission, Blake leaps out of the shadows onto a stack of crates, and from there tackles the last conscious--and sensibly fleeing--henchman. Rude Thug is the only one unaccounted for, and to Weiss' annoyance, he's used the confusion to slip out of sight. 

Weiss quickly looks round, trying to spot him. She doesn't see him, but she _does_ see the pulley chains she noticed earlier swaying back and forth. Weiss snorts. She steps forward, out from under the gantry, one step, two steps, three...

Rude Thug throws himself from the gantry above and behind her, knife drawn back, screaming, "Die, you smug little brat!"

Weiss is only vaguely aware of him, because she's too busy watching a shadow pass across the broken skylight. Weiss smiles when a squeaky voice made squeakier by indignation yells, "HEY!"

Ruby Rose launches herself through the skylight, visible only as a red blur trailing rose petals, and slams into Rude Thug in midair. He spins awkwardly over Weiss' head and crashes to the floor at Weiss' feet.

Ruby somersaults and lands neatly on her booted feet beside Weiss. She throws her cloak over her shoulder, thrusts an accusing finger at the groaning Rude Thug, and declares, "Villain! Weiss Schnee is not little!" Ruby clenches her other hand into a fist, and punches the air. "She is _charmingly petite!_ "

Weiss tries to smirk, but she's too worried about how hot her face suddenly feels for it to be one of her best. She shakes herself and says, in an almost entirely steady voice, "Precisely, Ruby!"

Rude Thug groans in what Weiss decides to interpret as agreement.

"You are pretty smug, though," Blake observes, strolling calmly into the patch of moonlight the rest of the team are standing under, and stopping beside Yang.

"I'm not smug!" Weiss protests. "I'm just right about everything!"

"And you are a _total_ brat," Yang adds happily, from her perch atop a stack of three unconscious thugs. She offers Blake a fist, and Blake bumps it without looking round.

Weiss stamps her foot. "Am not!"

Ruby puts a comforting hand on Weiss' shoulder. "It's okay! You're _our_ smug brat! And we wouldn't have you almost any other way! Except, maybe, now and again you could be more forgiving about cookie crumbs that mysteriously rain from the sky late at night...in our dorm room...and get into your bedsheets, because there really isn't anyone to blame if sometimes there's just...indoor cookie rain, and oh, _wow_ I wish that was actually a real thing, ah, not that it's _not_ , obviously, but...I...stop talking, Ruby?"

"Yes, do," Weiss confirms. She quickly looks away from Ruby, and musters a glare for her other teammates. "Hmph! And the rest of you simply have _no_ appreciation for someone who _always_ behaves with dignity and decorum!"

Rude Thug suddenly lunges for his fallen dagger.

Weiss heaves the chair up high and smashes it over his head as hard as she can, knocking him out cold. She tosses the remains of the vile furniture on Rude Thug's back, and absently wipes her hands on Ruby's cloak.

Ruby smiles at her. "That was a very dignified way to break a chair, Weiss! It looks, uh, really decorative now, too!"

"Ruby..."

"Yes, bestie?" She draws closer to Weiss, beaming with happiness, her wide silver eyes entirely without guile.

"Don't call me that." Weiss tries not to retreat a step, tries to fight the smile tugging at her lips. Weiss quickly looks down at her hands, pretending to check for splinters. She decides she'll correct Ruby on the difference between decorum and decoration another time. "I...that was an effective plan."

"Thanks, Wei-"

Weiss cuts her off with a sharp gesture. She looks up, face entirely composed. "I'm billing you for the damage done to my dress, though. And next time, Yang should be bait."

"O-oh...that seems...um, Yang isn't a famous heiress people would want to ransom, and...I have no money, though?"

Weiss waves her hand, dismissing such petty concerns. "You're the leader. You'll figure it out."

Yang springs to her feet and jogs up to Ruby's side, throwing an arm around her neck. "Don't worry, sis! Weiss isn't actually going to bill you. She wouldn't do that to her bestie!"

"L-lies!" Weiss' voice wavers slightly this time. "Ruby isn't..."

Ruby stares at her with huge, silver eyes, her lower lip trembling.

"Ugh, fine, I won't bill you!"

Ruby grins, her face lighting up. "Yay! Besties!"

"Shut up!" Weiss hisses, cheeks burning.

Yang laughs. "Well, fun as this is, we should probably get these guys secured and set up our ambush for the rest of them."

Ruby nods. She unbuckles Weiss' sword belt and returns Weiss' rapier to her. Then she stoops, and starts to root through Rude Thug's pockets until she finds his scroll. "We can call them back with this when we're ready."

Weiss sniffs. "Good thinking. Anything to speed things along so that I can get a bath." Weiss studies the interior of the warehouse again and shudders. "Maybe two baths..."

Blake strides up to her, holding up a familiar set of shackles. "Do you want to do the honours?"

Weiss smiles. "Indeed I do! You know, I did give him a fair warning about what was going to happen. Some people just don't know when to listen."

"Huh?" Ruby says, looking up from her scroll. "Were you talking to me?"

Weiss rolls her eyes at the girl she'll never admit she's grown _slightly_ fond of. She turns away so that Ruby can't see her smile, and locks the shackles around Rude Thug's wrists.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, folks! I'm pretty new to RWBY, having only just finished Volume Three, but I'm digging it! And this scenario presented itself, and it was fun, sooo...I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> If you'd like to leave feedback, I'd love to read it! Thanks again!


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